Punjab has been undergoing radical changes in transforming school education. Especially the governance structures (school being unit of analysis for improvement) influencing school and learning atmosphere. The proposed study focuses on scrutinizing these changes regarding school leadership in the era of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Pakistan. Leadership is concerned with how Head Teachers (HTs) promote, manage, and monitor the teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and skills using ICT to support student learning. These structural changes have created an engaging, prolific, and fruitful rationale for researchers to discuss how the policy-mandated initiatives impact leadership for learning mainly in primary schools. A qualitative case study of district Hafizabad opted as the methodology. Thirty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted, twenty-five with the HTs, seven with Assistant Education Officers, and the district supervisory staff. Thematic analysis was applied to reduce data and reach conclusions. There was an improvement in teaching-learning practices in school, but the pace of development could be faster. As a precursor to further research, this article highlighted gaps in policy and implementation for school improvement.

There is little research on the school principal leadership role for monitoring and evaluating school performance, while Pakistan being the signatory of Sustainable Development Goals, is committed to achieving quality education. Planned changes are undergoing in the governance structures (school accountability) affecting schools in general, particularly school principals. The province of Punjab has excelled in implementing School Reform Roadmap (a whole school improvement program) and conducting a monthly assessment to monitor and evaluate Literacy and Numeracy Drive (LND), an initiative to measure 3rd graders' educational attainment.  This research was conducted to review how the leadership role impacts achieving policy-mandated initiatives (LND) for schools' improvement. A case study method was opted for exploring the opinions of school principals from one district of Punjab. A self-constructed questionnaire comprising closed-ended items was used to get opinions from 194 elementary and primary school principals, while were interviewed to get detailed insight into barriers to school improvement and suggestion for better monitoring and evaluation. The case concludes that the participative leadership style is more prevalent among school principals, but the delegative style is more effective for school improvement.  Most of the infrastructural facilities are now available in schools, but unfortunately, computer lab and computer teachers are not available in most primary and elementary schools, which is the necessity of LND. The results inform that student attendance is still problematic for schools, and this challenge alone can negatively affect School Sector Reform goals.

Every government faces the pressure of quality and accountability as it has become an international agenda. Countries are shaping their policies according to the interest of stakeholders in globalization and international competition. They plan to establish high-performing school systems. Developed and developing countries are also struggling with this movement to ensure the quality and accountability of schools. Different accountability approaches are in practice. Mixed methods research design opted for using an interview protocol and sur\vey with 2220 participants from public elementary schools. A pragmatic approach selected for reliability, and validity was assured while using a triangulation design. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were performed for the analysis of data. It concluded that educational accountability is a challenging job. Data revealed an ambiguity in the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders, teachers, head teachers, parents, students, and district administration. Assign duties may be clarified, and responsible persons may be considered answerable. Some policies are there, but these are in practice in a different sense. Implementation of policies may be authenticated. When students' achievement is considered the main drive of school effectiveness, and schools are rated accountable for results to nurture positive change. More than achievement in numbers alone is required for quality education, as this can easily be achieved through misreporting. For quality and improvement over time, some prime features like creativity and higher-order thinking skills are mandatory. In different situations, there may be other yardsticks to judge students' personality traits like teamwork, commitment, and emotional adjustment. School teachers and head teachers had recommended replacing test-based accountability with performance-based accountability to amplify student learning and success.

School leadership is identified as a central point in the effectiveness of the school environment. School leaders work in instituting a learning climate in ways that assist a broad understanding of the effectiveness through the participation, learning, and achievement of students from diverse cultural and social backgrounds. There is little research about how a leadership role can assist in coping with the challenges varying according to contextual differences. Research under study furnished the reliance that different leadership styles can help to play a mediating role by carefully planning to overcome all pressure on transforming policy into practice to integrate values. Inferential statistics were applied using factor analysis, correlation, and multivariate regression. The research yielded five leadership styles that successful principals practiced: delegation, commanding, participative, cultural, and moral leadership styles. The commanding leadership style of principals is more effective in fixing responsibility to accountability, while the participative leadership style of teachers contributes to school improvement. However, a collaborative leadership style contributes to leadership effectiveness. The results indicate that a lack of leadership-oriented practices is still problematic for schools, and this challenge alone can negatively affect school improvement.